Welcome to Joo Chiat. Looking for Japanese places?

Cafe Natsu is a Japanese-inspired brunch cafe in the Joo Chiat area. The cafe's interior is an interior designer's dream with beautiful elegant lines and spaces.

Each of the dishes served were beautifully and artistically plated. Their kani croquette was shattering crisp on the outside and rich and creamy on the inside. In particular, we loved the black vinegar butter sauce which served as a dip on the side. It was rich, acidic, luscious and tangy, and paired beautifully with the croquette (and their fries too)!

The prices here though are a little steep... The food is good and the ambience lovely but $16 for a starter is really hard to justify if there isn't an occasion!

Serving some creative concoctions of coffee and refreshing fresca, @tomocafesg , a Japanese style cafe, with outlets in Joo Chiat and Neil Road is definitely worth checking out.

Some popular choices of coffee from the ToMo Cloud Coffee series include the iced kuro goma coffee featuring black sesame dairy-free cream, or the matcha/houjicha selection that includes the iced matcha strawberry cloud latte. I decided to go for the iced honeycomb latte from the ToMo signature, which I enjoyed extremely. It might, though, come across slightly sweet with hints of brown, buttery, caramelic notes, somewhat akin to toffee. Served with a shot of espresso, it was a perfect blend for people like me who doesn’t enjoy strong coffee shots, as the generous honeycomb chunks balanced the robust coffee really well.

If you like some interesting coffee creations, @tomocafesg is one good place to go for. With a huge selection of both espresso and non-espresso drinks, we settled on an Iced Kuro Goma Coffee ($8) and an Iced Honeycomb Latte ($7).

The Iced Kuro Goma Coffee came in a beautiful form, with thick luxurious looking Goma cream on top of the latte. The cream itself was savoury and had aromatic rich flavours of black sesame. I loved how the savoury and nutty flavour of the cream complemented the bold aromatic flavour of the coffee so well! This is one coffee worth sipping for.

The Iced Honeycomb Latte was also delicious, as the subtle caramelised notes of the dalgona gave the coffee further depth! Do remember to take out some towards the middle of your drinking experience as it can get quite sweet towards the end 😂

Definitely coming back to try more coffee variations!

If you following the food news closely, you should have read that one of the popular Japanese bakery in Singapore has shuttered and reopening with a new concept in collaboration with Kamome Bakery.

Kamome Bakery itself is also one of the popular Japanese bakery with 2 outlets on their own.

Offering some really good Japanese pastries such as their mascarpone red bean. Stuffed with cream and red bean inside in firm texture.

Their truffle salt butter also taste great with hint of truffle in every bites.

Mochi Donuts😋 Please refer to my previous Cafe Natsu post for my full review!😄

Went to Cafe Natsu three weeks ago and ordered their Wagyu Hamburg Bowl Set ($36), an Iced Matcha Latte ($8.50), and Mochi Donuts ($12)!😇

Overall ratings 9/10! Food and drinks were not too bad but was a bit pricey to me😅 Would head back again though👍🏻

It’s good and flavourful

We’ve heard about Tomo Cafe for quite some time and finally dropped by their outlet at Joo Chiat to check it out! We came after lunch so we just got some drinks and a dessert to share:

This featured honeycomb in milk with an espresso shot that was aromatic and on point. The drink was really aesthetic but it was a little too much honeycomb for us. It had a tendency to stick to your teeth too. Nevertheless, we loved how changing to oat milk does not require a top up!

A substantial cup of houjicha goma latte, you’d be hit by strong umami notes which tasted almost like seaweed but in a good way. The goma cream was nutty and delicious, while houjicha flavours were decently rich and not too thin. This was a good and safe choice!

We were initially quite surprised by the size of this dessert. There was a thin layer of pannacotta, topped with cinnamon crumble, generous honeycomb, and vanilla ice cream. The pannacotta was creamy and fragrant, went well with the texture of the cinnamon crumble and the sticky crunchy texture of the honeycomb. The vanilla ice cream was an icy refreshing contrast to the dessert.
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Tomo Cafe is very popular, especially on the weekends. They have a dining time limit of 90 minutes too - so don’t forget to make a reservation in advance. We’d be back for their drinks and to try their mains!

48hr marinated shrimp paste har cheong gai chicken, crunchy cucumber, japanese milk bread